BENGALURU : Former World No 1 Kidambi Srikanth has had an unremarkable 2019. Last year, it was more or less the same. With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics less than a year away, how the 26-year-old fares in the next few months is going to be extremely crucial. His performance so far this season has more questions than answers.
The recent Worlds witnessed Round of 16 exit for Srikanth (current World No 10), losing to Kantaphon Wangcharoen (14). He has struggled against lower-ranked players in the BWF circuit. Besides his Worlds loss, he lost to Khosit Phetpradab (30) in Thailand, HS Prannoy (26) in Japan, and Shesar Hiren Rhustavito (34) in the Badminton Asia Championships. He’s highly disappointed but is determined to turn things around.
“I know it is sometimes very frustrating (losing to them) because you always enter the court to win. But you should also understand your body. It is about being patient, working on your mistakes, training hard and getting better. It is a process. It won’t come overnight. You don’t even know if you will get it if you work hard. So you have to work continuously thinking it will come,” said Srikanth.
Even when he won three matches against Nhat Nguyen (84), Misha Zilberman (45) and Ren Peng Bo (89) in August, Srikanth was stretched to three games in all these matches when he was expected to breeze through.
Also, last year when he was playing some decent badminton against the big names, he could not cross the finishing line. He reached the finals of 2018 Commonwealth Games and 2019 India Open, but finished second-best. He has been a shadow of himself, compared to his feat in 2017, a year when he had made history by winning four titles. Those titles had catapulted him to No 1 in the BWF rankings in early 2018.
When it comes to crunch games, he has been below par, failing to cross the quarterfinal hurdle several times. In the last 20 months, he has been knocked out in the quarterfinal stage eleven times. Srikanth is aware of it and feels that injuries have not helped his cause. The shuttler has had ankle issues after the Rio Olympics and he also missed Sudirman Cup in May due to knee problems.
“In the last one year or so, I have played about 10-12 quarterfinals and four to five semifinals and finals. That is something which is still there in my mind. But it isn’t the only thing I am looking at. It is about improving. Even if I win a tournament, I come back and train to improve. So whether I win or lose, I always try and learn. Unfortunately, I have not been able to train at that high level in the last year and a half because of injuries,” said Srikanth, who will face B Sai Praneeth in the upcoming China Open, starting September 17.